Downtown apartment complex burns

Complex destroyed, but no injuries reported

A three-alarm fire destroyed the Scott Apartment building Monday afternoon, March 4, 2013, at 204 West 1st Street in San Angelo.

Joy Alsobrook (center) is comforted by neighbors as a fire engulfs Scott Apartments, next to the neighbors’ duplex. Alsobrook and her husband, Everette (right), were in despair as the fire spread to the roof.

Photos by Kimberley Meyer/Standard-Times
A three-alarm fire destroyed Scott Apartments, 204 W. First St. San Angelo firefighters fought the blaze from all four sides for about two hours Monday afternoon. No one was injured.

SAN ANGELO, Texas - Joe Moran planned to spend the remainder of the day on the town with his girlfriend, hoping to return to their downtown apartment — free of cockroaches.

Instead, Moran was covered with sweat, nursing an ankle injury, as smoke wafted his direction from his blazing apartment across the street as firefighters were dousing the raging inferno Monday afternoon.

Moran, 31, said he was setting insecticide fumigators inside his one-bedroom, upstairs apartment when the fire started.

Flames burst from an upstairs balcony and roof of Scott Apartments, 204 W. First St., at 2 p.m. Monday. Police closed nearby streets as a number of firetrucks were battling the fire, which had spread onto nearby trees.

Moran said he thought he completely shut off all the gas to the apartment as he was setting the canned insecticides. His girlfriend, Tasha Wallace, waited in their car in front of the apartments as Moran set the insecticides.

Just before leaving the apartment, Moran said he heard a boom come from their kitchen, and a fireball from an open oven ignited his bed, which was approximately seven feet from the appliance.

The pillows and sheets immediately caught fire, and Moran said his instinct was to alert his neighbors of the danger the building was in.

He ran through the hallways hollering “fire” and pounding on doors. Running toward the car frantically, he stumbled on the sidewalk and twisted his ankle.

“I was running and yelling, ‘Fire, fire, our apartment’s on fire!’” he said. “My landlord yelled ‘shut up’ and told me to not kid around like that, but I was so serious. It was at that moment everyone started getting out.”

Moran said he went back to try to extinguish the fire, but he said the heat was intense and the bed was fully engulfed in flames that were spreading throughout the room.

Minutes later, firefighters and police showed up.

Surrounding buildings, 12 feet from the flaming apartments, were evacuated, and firefighters were able to contain the fire to one structure, and no one was injured.

“All the occupants of the apartment complex were accounted for,” said Anthony Wilson, the city’s public information officer. “No one was injured.”

Wilson said the battalion chief suspected that the fire had been burning for a while by the time his crew arrived.

Firefighters attempted to advance to the second floor but had to retreat because the flames, which had reached the attic, were too hot.

With Moran and Wallace, across the street from the complex, were a number of onlookers and other tenants.

Embracing each other were Everett and Joy Alsobrook, a couple devastated as they watched everything they owned go up in flames in front of them.

Joy Alsobrook was home at the complex at the time of the fire and helped Moran notify their neighbors, who she said are tight-knit.

Alsobrook, 27, said she has lived at the complex for about a year and a half and had moved from Michigan, where she served as a volunteer firefighter.

“My firefighter instinct kicked in, and I said ... everybody else is important. I made sure nobody was left behind,” she said.

After safely getting out of the complex, she called her husband, who works down the road across North Bryant Boulevard at All American Chevrolet.

He said that he heard the urgency in her voice and that he dropped everything at work and ran to his burning complex.

“I ran all the way over here as fast as I could. One firefighter tried to stop me as I got close by, but I said, ‘I live here,’” he recalled as tears ran down his face.

He said he and his wife will stay with his sister-in-law for the time being, but the thought of losing all their possessions had him distraught.

He said they did not have renters insurance and did not know how they would even start replacing their items.

About six trucks responded to the fire, Wilson said.

He suspected that the building had been burning for about two hours by the time firefighters extinguished it close to 4 p.m.

An aerial bucket truck craned over the front of the structure as firefighters hosed the flames tearing through the roof.

“They were attacking from all sides,” Wilson said. “It’s the same crew that put out the Catfish Corner and Lonestar Warehouse fires. These guys have done an outstanding job. Despite the loss, no one was hurt in any of them.”

At the time the crew was called to the fire, it was doing an evaluation of the response to the Catfish Corner fire two weeks before.

Wilson said the city’s fire marshal predicts that he will be able to further investigate the fire this evening, depending on how safe the structure is.

The building will be a complete loss, Wilson said

Moran and Wallace, both workers at IHOP, also said they did not have renters insurance.

The two said they hadn’t even thought of where they were going to sleep Monday night because they have no family or anybody to turn to.

“We don’t have much,” Moran said. “All that we got is our job, car and the clothes on our back.”